The Canadian Forces currently operates 18 CP-140 Aurora aircraft for maritime, SAR and other operations. This aging fleet has been under going a multimillion-dollar upgrade program for the last decade that has been halted by the Canadian Government. A decision whether to purchase brand new patrol aircraft is expected before the end of this year.

Would the P-8 Poseidon be a realistic option for the CAF? Are there other aircraft that would meet the requirements?

Quoting KrisYYZ (Thread starter):Would the P-8 Poseidon be a realistic option for the CAF? Are there other aircraft that would meet the requirements?

P-8 would probably be a very good option. Nimrod is no longer in production (hasn't been for years); nor is P-3 Orion (though Lockheed at one point had a new variant called the P-7 that was in competition with a 757 based patrol plane. Neither bird was produced -- lack of funding killed the project, I believe.)

I have to wonder if Airbus has considered an ASW variant of one of its planes; A320 perhaps?

Quoting L-188 (Reply 1):Too bad you can't go the Argus route and have your own industry design a new airframe-in country-for the role...

Are the plans for the old CL-44 running around........Shorten it, slam some Allison 2100 engines on it...

Hey, those are almost the same airplane. The Argus was based on the Bristol Britannia, while the CL-44 Yukon was based on...the Bristol Britannia. Radial engines were used on the Argus due to a lower fuel consumption.

There's no telling what is happening in Ottawa with this. They may be looking at UAV's, they may be after a Dash-8 derivative, they may jump onboard the P-8 program. It depends on what the expected mission is. Traditionally the CP-140 has done training for ASW, offshore fisheries patrols, arctic sovereignty & environmental assessment patrols, & SAR support missions. If they still want to do all those missions with one airplane, they will need something fairly large to give the range & payload performance they need.

Quoting MissedApproach (Reply 8):There's no telling what is happening in Ottawa with this. They may be looking at UAV's, they may be after a Dash-8 derivative, they may jump onboard the P-8 program. It depends on what the expected mission is. Traditionally the CP-140 has done training for ASW, offshore fisheries patrols, arctic sovereignty & environmental assessment patrols, & SAR support missions. If they still want to do all those missions with one airplane, they will need something fairly large to give the range & payload performance they need.

You make a good point. But what's available in the size and performance category you'd be describing? And would there be enough of a market for such airplanes to warrant a competition to produce one? Boeing ASW 757 proposal comes to mind, again, but I don't believe they'd pursue it because it would compete, to some degree, with the P-8.

Well, I would say the P-8/737 is as large as Canada would go. It has the range performance that would be required for arctic patrols. I think Yellowknife & Iqaluit are as far North as you can go in Canada & find a paved runway. There are 5000 foot strips farther North, but I believe they are all gravel.
The CP-140/P-3 is perfectly suited to long range patrol missions, but we tend to put really huge hours on all of our equipment, & I imagine that's at the root of this.

The Canadian military is recommending that a $1-billion modernization program for the country's fleet of Aurora surveillance aircraft be scrapped and the air force ease back on how it uses the planes so they can be kept flying until a replacement is delivered. The military argues it doesn't make sense to pump more money into the 25-year-old Auroras, noting that by the time the modernized planes are ready, even more advanced technology will be available. There are also concerns about the extent of the structural problems now facing the Auroras.
The military's recommendation is to keep the Auroras flying until 2016 without upgrades while proceeding with the purchase of Poseidon surveillance aircraft, the U.S. navy's successor to its version of the Aurora. Several years ago, Canada was invited by the U.S. to take part in the Poseidon program, but declined.

Quoting EBJ1248650 (Reply 2):Nimrod is no longer in production (hasn't been for years);

Remarkably it nearly was back in production as new plane a few years back - the MR4A version of the Nimrod that is in production by BAe only carries over 5% of the donor aircraft and BAe offered a solution whereby an entirely new aircraft was created this wasn't taken up though - which is a shame for BAe as they later found that the manufacturing tollerances on the recovered fusealages were so poor that each set of wings had to altered to make it fit!

Nimrod would be too expensive, but the upgraded MRA.4 are effectively new aircraft (they ger new serials after conversion), since only the fuselage pressure shell is original, everything else, inside and out, is new.
BAe sold this as a upgrade/conversion to get the contract, the Treasury always think that 'upgrade' is much cheaper than buying new.
They have also said they could produce entirely new aircraft, which as it turns out, would have been a lot quicker and cheaper.

But Canada I guess will go with P-8, plugging into that much larger programme with the big USN order and it's economies of scale.
With Canada stressing issues over the Arctic, with the absurd underwater posturing by that secret policeman in the Kremlin, I seriously doubt Canada is going to skimp on such a vital asset.
So unlikely Canada will get some turboprop commuter liner converted for maritime patrol, Canada's needs cover a vast area and face potentially sophisticated threats.